Attack
by scarybitch29
Summary: I love Jane Austen and wanted somewhere to post my own work not really about her work I afraid. But Id Love you to take a look and tell me what you think, alot of this is inspired by the book the 'Bread Winner'.


Attack.

Chapter 1: **Trust.**

As Larena crouched, huddled beneath the old oak desk, she wondered how anyone could hate with such a passion. Tormented cries and sobs echoed down the grand hallway; taunting her for her cowardice and placing images in her head that would stay with her throughout life. Her long dark hair hid her from the harsh reality that was slowly encasing her. Shutting her eyes, she blocked out the brutal world outside and gradually slipped into the sweet release of unconsciousness.

Silence; as his world came slowly back into focus he could see the battered shells of human life all around him, draped unnaturally serenely, as if part of a majestic death in a play. No one had been there to protect them when the soldiers had arrived. He had been the sole boy amongst a group of twenty women and children. The men had come around one in the morning, with no warning, and had been met with little resistance. Sleeping children were murdered in their beds; women taken. The blow had come very quickly, sparing him from any detail; but the horror he was now faced with was overwhelming. The bile came to his throat thick and fast.

The pain came flooding back; washing over each small cut and bruise until she thought she would die from the severity of it. She would have screamed but for the terror that seemed to weld her mouth tightly closed and the chance that there might still be men in the building. She peeked slowly from under the desk, her eyes blurred with tears; could they all really be dead? It didn't seem possible, but the stream of blood that at that moment reached her, dampening her knees; was enough to confirm what she had been dreading.

A man; there was a man still in the building, how could she have been so stupid as to think that God had spared her. Why had she been special, now was her time to die. She shut her eyes and began to pray.

There had been a movement. Where? He prepared himself for confrontation. Clenching his already broken and bleeding fists and picking up the nearest broken table leg, he prowled forward, keeping his muscles tense and senses alert. He lunged towards the noise brandishing his weapon. This intruder would pay for his organisations crimes. He would die.

He stopped dead in his tracks. A girl; the vicious intruder he had been preparing to batter to death had been a young girl kneeling behind a desk with her hands folded in prayer. He dropped to his knees and weeped. He cried for the pain and violence he had suffered and had been forced to be witness to; he cried for the men, women and children who would never see the light of day again because of the evil nature of men.

Why had the man stopped? She had sensed him come near and then he had just crumbled onto the floor with his hands clutching his knees. She felt like she was intruding but at the same time she empathised with his state of mind. She had never heard a whine like the one he expressed at that moment. An awful release of sorrow and distress that travelled through her body making her shiver. She began to cry. For her parents, for the children in the orphanage that she had befriended and most of all for the death she felt with her soul; the deadening of her heart that told her she no longer believed in those things we believe as children. Life was no longer beautiful, she saw only death and the cruelness of man all around her.

The girl's eyes fluttered open; small delicate blue eyes stared up at him; but they did not hold the emotions that he had expected. He knew that those eyes had seen things that no child should have had to have witnessed but her eyes displayed a hardness that made him feel extremely sad.

The pair stayed staring in those positions for an unimaginable length of time. They felt bonded somehow as both had no one in the world left to turn to. They alone knew what the other had experienced and they took comfort from this un-committed companionship.

Larena couldn't believe how much had changed within the last 12 hours. Her parents were gone. She knew that much. The loss she felt was surprisingly little. Her candour shocked even her, but her parents had been with her little and as she thought of them she felt her heart harden. They had never been there for her; even now, when she most needed them, they had left her.

She knew she didn't really blame her parents but she could not bring herself to mourn for them yet. She wasn't ready.

Hamal came back out of his thoughts when he heard the girl start to sing softly to a lullaby. At first he thought only of the beautiful tone she had but then..

Hamal reeled back in shock as he recognised her language. He knew this was the language he had been taught to fear and hate. He was told never to trust anyone who spoke it and as he watched her he noticed that she did indeed have fair skin beneath the dirt and dust. His first reaction was the one he had been trained to feel but then he began to trust his own instincts. She did not seem ferocious or evil, she was but a young girl, and he knew he could not leave her to die.

Creeping along the sun lit passages was the most surreal experiences the pair had ever experienced. The setting was perfect, yet the scenes which they both knew lay in wait behind those doors were enough for them to be in no hurry to stay.

Larena knew that she would have to stay with this boy if she wished to survive. How could a young _girl _remain alone in such a politically diverse country as Afghanistan? She knew that this boy wasn't anything like the other men; his appearance was the same, but his character was welcoming and gentle, she could see through his eyes he would not harm her.

As they stepped into the morning sunshine they both were unsure of what to do next, their main objective had been to escape from the place which had held such terrifying images for them both, but now they were back in the real world and faced with major decisions.


End file.
